A Brief History of US Interventions in the Middle East 1949-2002

By Ty Moore

1949: CIA backs military coup in Syria, ousting elected government.

1953: CIA overthrows democratically
elected Iranian government, placing the Shah in power. In 1951, Iranian
parliament had nationalized the British Anglo-Iranian oil company. This
popular move was spearheaded by the reformer, Mossadegh, who was
elected prime minister shortly after. Britain and the US organize
ruthless economic blockade. Shortly before the coup, the Communist
Party calls a 100,000 strong demonstration to protest the US and the
Shah. Nine hours of street fighting finally quells popular rebellion
against the coup.

1954: Iranian oil re-privatized, with
US and Britain in control. Popular opposition compels the Shah to rule
through a reign of terror unrivalled in the region. US helps fund huge
military and police build-up, and trains Savak, the notorious secret
police. Amnesty International would write in 1976 that Iran had the
"highest rate of death penalties in the world, no valid system of
civilian courts and a history of torture which is beyond belief. No
country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran."

1957-58: Syria and Egypt take steps
toward a merger, reflecting revolutionary yearning of the Arab masses
to unite against Western imperialism. The US Sixth Fleet is dispatched,
and huge arms shipments are delivered to US client regimes. Syria and
Egypt claim to uncover "at least eight separate conspiracies to
overthrow one or the other government, to assassinate Nasser, and/or
prevent the merger of the two countries." Independent evidence
detailing several of these failed plots subsequently emerges.

1958: Iraq and Lebanon: Two weeks
after 1958 Egypt/Syria merger, the US establishes "Baghdad Pact,"
uniting monarchies and puppet regimes against threat of Nasserism and
growing Soviet influence. Mass rioting erupts throughout the region.
Iraqi troops are ordered into Jordan to put down unrest. Under popular
pressure, the army mutinies and instead marches on the royal palace.
The hated King, Crown Prince, and Prime Minister are lynched.

The next day, US Marines land in Lebanon and British troops
are dispatched to Jordan. A virtual civil war erupts as 14,000 US
troops enter Lebanon at the invitation of the unpopular, CIA-backed
government of Chamoun. Lebanese forces manage to put down the rebellion
after months of urban clashes. President Eisenhower would later write:
"This somber turn of events could, without a vigorous response on our
part, result in the complete elimination of Western influence in the
Middle East."

1963: Right wing of Iraq's Ba'ath
party leads successful coup with US support, after unsuccessful US
assassination attempt against Iraqi leader, Abdul Karim Qassim. The CIA
provides Ba'ath party with names of Iraqi communists to murder, and the
CP is ruthlessly slaughtered.

1968: A counter-coup, in which Saddam Hussein participates, leads to nationalization of Iraqi oil in 1972.

1973-75: To destabilize Iraq during a
border dispute with Iran, US supports Kurdish rebels with $16 million
in arms, promising to back them in their struggle for autonomy. When
Iran and Iraq reach an agreement in 1975 and seal off their border,
Iraq proceeds to violently suppress the Kurdish rebellion. US ends
support for Kurds and denies them refuge. Henry Kissinger, architect of
the ploy, explained, "covert action should not be confused with
missionary work."

1973, 1978: A nationalist coup in 1973
brings down the Afghan monarchy. A 1978 coup puts the Stalinist Peoples
Democratic Party in power. Afraid of growing Afghan ties to the Soviet
Union, US begins covert funding for the reactionary Islamic
Fundamentalist rebels. Mujahideen "Freedom Fighters" (according to
President Ronald Reagan), are lead by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whose
"followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of
women who refused to wear the veil." Six months later, the Soviet Union
sends in troops to prop-up the Afghan government.

1979-92: US gives over $3 billion in
arms and aid to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. CIA sets up training
camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan - some of the same "terrorist
training camps" the US will bomb in 2001. Osama bin Laden and many
other of today's Islamic Fundamentalist terrorist leaders are direct
recipients of US aid and training. By 1992, more than a million Afghan
people will have died, three million disabled, and five million made
refugees, in total about half the population. The civil war continues
to this day.

1979: Striking oil workers and
students in Iran call for ousting the Shah, sparking a revolutionary
uprising. US tells Shah it supports him "without reservation" and urges
him to violently crush protest, but Shah is overthrown.

1980: Iraq invades Iran. Though
antagonistic to both countries, the US intervenes to promote and
prolong the conflict, looking to weaken both regimes. US opposes UN
resolution condemning Iraq's invasion, takes Iraq off its list of
nations supporting terrorism, and allows US arms transfers to Saddam
Hussein. US urges Israel to arm Iran, and in 1985 the US secretly
provides arms to Iran directly.

1982-83: Heavily funded, armed, and
backed by the US, Israel invades Lebanon. Over 17,000 civilians are
massacred. US blocks several UN resolutions calling for an Israeli
withdrawal. In 1983, US troops also land in Lebanon to intervene in the
civil war.

1984: Iraq uses chemical weapons on
Iran; US subsequently restores diplomatic relations with Iraq. A US
Defense Intelligence Agency official involved in aiding Iraq later
commented that the Pentagon "wasn't so horrified by Iraq's use of gas.
It was just another way of killing people."

1987: As Iran gets the upper hand in
war with Iraq, the US moves to decisively back Iraq. A massive US
armada in Persian Gulf ensures arms deliveries to Iraq. When a US
gunship shoots down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing 290
passengers, Vice President Bush says, "I will never apologize for
America. I don't care what the facts are."

1985-90: The US showers Iraq with
billions in arms, loans, and aid. After Saddam Hussein uses chemical
weapons to murder thousands of the Kurdish opposition in Iraq, the Bush
administration continues to license the sale of chemical weapons, and
blocks UN initiatives to curb their use.

1991: After Iraq invades Kuwait in
1990, US launches Operation Desert Storm - the most aggressive,
high-tech military campaign in the history of warfare. Dropping more
bomb tonnage than in all of Vietnam or World War Two, the 43 day air
campaign kills between 100,000 and 200,000 Iraqis and destroys civilian
infrastructure. Fearing a popular revolt and the destabilization of the
region, the US refuses to aid previously encouraged uprisings by Kurds
and Shi'as in the weeks after the war. US denies the rebels access to
captured Iraqi weapons, and allows Iraqi helicopters use of "No-fly
Zone" airspace to crush the uprising.

1990-now: Severe economic sanctions
imposed on Iraq by the UN. By UN estimates, the sanctions have cost
over a million lives, half of them children. About 5,000 children die
each month, mostly from malnutrition and treatable diseases. From the
most economically advanced country in the region before the US attack,
Iraq today is among the most destitute.

1998: Renewed US and British bombing
campaign - called Operation Desert Fox - against Iraq after it exposes
US spies among UN weapons inspectors (later admitted by US officials).
The UN pulls out inspectors before bombings, which continue to the
present on average every other day.

2001: Following the September 11th
terrorist attacks, the US launches a war on Afghanistan, killing over
3,500 people. US led UN occupation of the country props up US puppet
regime of Karzai.

Middle East HistoryColonial Rule Before World War II

In the mid 19th century, as the Ottoman Empire crumbled, the Western
powers set determined eyes on the Middle East. Lord Curzan declared
that the Persian Gulf should become a "British Lake." By the end of
World War I, Britain and France assumed direct control of the
territories of Egypt, Persia (Iran), Iraq, Palestine, and Syria.
Western occupation, sanctioned by the UN precursor (the League of
Nations), was in part also designed to crush the revolutionary ferment
that swept the region following the Russian Revolution of 1917.

French and British imperialism arbitrarily carved
up the vast territory inhabited by the Arab peoples to create
artificial nation-states. These were created for colonial convenience
and to break apart the Arab nation, making it easier to foist
subservient, corrupt monarchies.

In 1921, Britain imposed a new monarch on Iraq -
Faisal, "a king who will be content to reign, but not to govern," in
the words of a British Foreign Office bureaucrat. The subsequent mass
uproar was suppressed in brutal massacres in 1920-4. The brutality of
British rule was captured in an infamous quote from Winston Churchill,
who said "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas.
I am strongly in favor of using poisoned gas against uncivilized
tribes."

By 1932, a limited "independence" was granted to
Iraq, with Britain keeping its military bases and control of most
industries. Winston Churchill explained that under this treaty British
imperialism would remain "the owners or at any rate the controllers at
the source of at least a proportion of the oil which we require." Or as
the British military chief of staff explained, it gave "the appearance
of complete equality... Whatever the de jure arrangements, we must retain the de facto control."

In the aftermath of World War Two, the colonial
revolution surged forward on a global scale. Western European
imperialist powers were economically devastated by the war and faced
revolutionary upheavals at home. The Soviet Union emerged as a global
power and, despite the horrors of Stalinist dictatorship, represented
an important counterweight to Western imperialism.

The United States emerged as the dominant power
in the capitalist world. From the Middle East to South East Asia, the
US moved to displace the European powers as masters of the resources
and peoples in the colonial world and the main defender of capitalist
interests against radical movements for social change.